


Darkwatch: Innocence

by SaneCharlie



Category: Sentinels of the Multiverse (Card Game)
Genre: Gen, Superheroes, the violence is brief but it's a little unpleasant, timeline: just before the Oblivaeon event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 10:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13233972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaneCharlie/pseuds/SaneCharlie
Summary: When Dr. Tremata sees a murder that doesn't fit the usual Rook City pattern of muggings and random death, that's when she calls her friends in Darkwatch.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Further tags which might be spoilers appear in the endnote.

“I don’t like it. It’s all wrong.”

“Amanda, it’s a muffin.”

She glared, one-eyed, at her friend Juli. “That’s not what I mean. This whole place is too…exposed. Too many windows, too many angles of attack. Anyone could get to us here.”

“When I asked you to come for coffee, I didn’t realise it would be such an imposition.”

Expatriette shrugged, stiffly. “I don’t like being so exposed, that’s all. And the muffin isn’t good either, it’s too dry.”

“You just don’t like being unarmed.” Juli sipped her coffee, slowly.

“You’re right, I don’t. You shouldn’t either. I’m sure you have as many enemies as I do.”

Juli smiled. “Oh, I don’t think any supervillains know who I am.”

“Whatever. Juli, why am I here?”

Dr Tremata rolled her eyes, reached into her bag, and flipped a few photos onto the table.

The man in the photos was not that unusual or interesting, and if she’d passed him in the street Amanda probably wouldn’t have looked twice. He was neither handsome nor ugly, well dressed but not ostentatious, neither particularly fit nor unusually chubby. The backdrop to the pictures was ordinary too, the kind of broken stones that could be found in alleyways all over the city. The only thing that broke the illusion of normality was the small wound in his chest, directly through the heart.

She grimaced. “So what are we looking at?”

“His name’s Stefan Jones. Unremarkable man, as far as the police are aware. Did administrative work in a bank in the city. Went missing a couple of nights ago and nobody saw him until he turned up dead.” Dr. Tremata took another thoughtful sip. Amanda just blinked her eye at her.

“So far it sounds like a mugging.” And Lord knew there were enough of those in Rook City to keep anybody busy. The Wraith was a big help in keeping street crime down, and Amanda certainly liked to think she did her part too, but something about the city meant that no matter how many criminals and monsters they dealt with, there always seemed to be more.

“So you might think. But see this wound?” She indicated one of the photos, a close-up on the chest. “Straight-edged, not ragged or torn. If there was a struggle, you wouldn’t see a wound like this. And there’s some bruising around the wrists and ankles-“

“He was restrained.”

“Bingo.” The doctor leaned forward, eager now despite her professional composure. “Restrained, and killed by a single stab wound directly to the heart. The body left in an alleyway when the perpetrators were done with him – not so much disposed of as just abandoned, like they didn’t care about police. Maybe like they were trying to draw attention. Tell me that doesn’t sound strange to you.”

Amanda just nodded. “Fine, you’re right, it’s strange. We’ll look into it.”

 

“What about me makes you think that ‘stabbed in the heart’ automatically means ‘magic’? Do you have that bleak an opinion of the mystical, or do I give off a creepy vibe?” The sorcerer known as Nightmist was sitting in a soft old leather armchair, poring over a crumbling book, and now that she’d been interrupted, tapping her foot on the floor.

“You know it’s not that, Faye,” said Amanda. “But yeah, you do. You spend half your time covered in black clothes and weird symbols, and the other half fading into sentient mist. I like you, but you’re creepy.”

Faye quirked a smile, and completely failed to hide it. “Fine. So apart from a few details of his untimely death, what do we know about this man?”

“Not much.” Amanda’s face returned to its habitual frown. “Bachelor living alone, insignificant office job, no enemies we know about.”

A nod. “Organization connections?”

“None we’re aware of. Not yet, anyway.” The question had long-since become automatic – so many things in Rook City could be laid at the feet of the Chairman’s Organization – but this time there was no police presence either hurrying things along or hushing them up, and that suggested that for once, it wasn’t their fault. All that they were doing was treating it with the lack of interest so typical of their department. “Seems like an innocent bystander.”

Faye grumbled under her breath a little, and aloud said “Alright then. Next step would be-“

“I already got you a sample of his blood,” said Expat, and pulled out the little tubefull, “Tremata was very well-prepared.” Faye grinned.

“You both know me too well. Give it here, I’ll prepare the ritual, and we’ll find the real murder scene.”

“Great,” she said, and passed it over. Faye held it up to her eye, carefully inspecting. “And you’re still creepy.”

The ritual did not take long, all-told. Once Faye would have needed to retreat into a secluded room in their base and taken hours with intricate symbols, deep mental focus, the chanting of strange magical phrases…now, it was simple. She poured a quick but perfect circle in salt, held up the phial, and said a single word. The phial sparked in response, then the spark wriggled and flexed, and grew into a strong, pulsing glow. Even to Amanda’s eyes, it seemed to be leading them forwards, and Faye looked like she was seeing much more.

“Follow me.”

Expatriette followed.

 

Overbrook City had once been a leader of the nation, a bastion of modern industry and a place where innovators and developers and all kinds of people with big ideas came and congregated and tried to change the world. It had been the site of a massive boom, and a lot of those who came had made their names and their fortunes for the parts they played.

That was a long time ago now, but the signs were still there, and a lot of them looked like this place – a dingy, abandoned warehouse, cluttered with rusting equipment, vats of rotting slime and crates of unsold products. The floors were coated in pigeon feathers and rat droppings and dust, the air was full of grit and the smells of aging metal and oil.

Expatriette led the way through the shadows, checking the corners and guarding Nightmist as she moved, while the mage directed their progress, pointing them through the warehouse towards some faint trace of murder.

The detritus and clutter gave way to a little clearing, and Nightmist nodded.

“We’re here.”

Expatriette moved around the edges, checking for danger, but there was none. The place was as empty as it seemed. “It’s safe. Do what you need to.”

The spellcaster moved forward, hand outstretched thoughtfully, and muttered something under her breath.

“Problem?”

“Maybe.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s something a little…I don’t know. Odd.”  
“Who’d have thought.” Expat grinned, crouching to inspect something on the ground.  
“Funny. I mean, I’m not sure if there was magic done here or not. There’s a strange sort of residue about the place, I don’t know what it means.”

“But the murder was definitely here?”

Faye nodded.

“Then it was definitely something from the weird magic-stuff end. Look.” She held out her hand, showing the droplets of dried wax she’d found. “Someone, probably a few someones, was here with a bunch of lit candles.”

“That doesn’t prove a lot-“

“Sure, but I’m betting it wasn’t a meeting of the Abstinence Club.”

Faye smiled wryly. “No, probably not.”

“So, then…” Amanda paused, thoughtful. “Does this help you?”

“Maybe. If I can get a fix on that residue, maybe I can detect other traces, or set up something to warn us if it flares up again.”

“Catch them in the act. Nice plan.” A sudden gust blew through, rattling the windows and scattering the rubbish around. Amanda realised her guns were up, fingers on triggers, and she gradually, consciously untensed. “The faster you can get it done, the better. Something about this place gives me the creeps.”

“I know what you mean,” said Nightmist, and hurried on with her work.

The dust swirled around, and Expatriette glared out at it, looking for enemies. But there was nothing there.


	2. Chapter 2

Back at the garage which served as their home base, Expat was pacing. Back and forth, wearing a track into the old carpet, and drinking an expensive beer. The search hadn’t found anything, and while Faye had confidently begun work on her passive tracking spell, that left them without a lot of tangible process. And Amanda was a big fan of making tangible progress, or of shooting things until they did what she wanted. Which was basically the same thing.

The door slammed back on its hinges, the handle leaving a dent in the wall.

“Hi everyone!” said Setback, followed quickly by “Oh…sorry.”

Amanda sighed, but somewhere inside she was also a little relieved. Pete was so lighthearted – often despite all the reasons not to be – that he never failed to raise her spirits too. And if that meant repeatedly replastering the wall where he damaged it, and sometimes rehanging the door when he completely knocked it in, well, that was worth it in the end.

“How’s the city look?”

He grinned widely, his mood bouncing back as easily as a rubber ball. “Not bad! I bumped into a couple of drug dealers – well, fell into them really – and I persuaded them to turn themselves in, and then I saw someone almost shoot someone else but I stopped that and walked them home, the person who was almost mugged I mean, not the mugger, and that went okay but when I was leaving I saw someone trying to sneak into the bank so I stopped that too. I think I’m getting the hang of this hero thing!”

The weird thing was, as superficial as all that sounded, he wasn’t wrong – he really was pretty good at the hero stuff. It didn’t hurt that his power tended to lead him to trouble and danger more often than not, and that was where he could make a difference. Plus, he wouldn’t know how to give up if he tried, and spirit like that was important in this city. Rare, too.

“That sounds great, sweetie. I’ll take over patrolling now, okay?”

He nodded cheerfully, and went to find a place to relax after a long day of putting the fear of random destruction into the criminal community. Expat checked the chambers of her guns Pride and Prejudice, holstered them both, and stalked out into the city to express her anger upon someone deserving.

 

A week went by, and nothing happened. Faye didn’t seem bothered, taking it more as an opportunity to teach her new apprentice a few of the finer points of magical theory – not to mention a lesson in patience. Lillian handled it okay, but patience was not Amanda’s strongest point. Instead she pestered her contacts for information, interrupted some weapons smuggling and confiscated the goods, and cleaned her guns until they practically glowed.

She was in the middle of one marathon cleaning session when Fixer knocked on her workshop door. She looked up from her work, exasperated. “Yeah? Any news?”

“No.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, made a little irritated sound, and turned back to her guns. “Okay. Tell me if anything happens.”

He didn’t move.

“Amanda.”

“What!?” She realised how snappish she sounded, but didn’t much care.

“We need you to get a hold of yourself.”

She was shocked, for a moment. “Excuse me?”

“You’re our leader. We look to you to know what to do, how to react. Since that murder, you’ve been edgy, angry…you’ve been jumping at shadows. How do you think that affects the rest of us? Even Pete’s starting to feel it.”

She could feel the truth it what he was saying, but she still scowled down at the workbench. “And I suppose you’ve been a paragon of calm restraint.”

“Not the point. If you want these people to follow you when things get dangerous, you need to be there in times like this. Even if you’re feeling frustrated and helpless.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know…Slim, I don’t know if I can do it any more. Being the leader, it’s…I hurt people. That’s what I’m good at. I’m not someone that people can rely on.”

“You’ve already proven that wrong more times than I can count. Where is this coming from? All this doubt isn’t like you.”

“It’s this case, it’s a brick wall.” She sighed. It was hard for her to admit defeat, and that was what this felt like. “I’ve tapped my informants, followed any lead I could, and got nowhere. Nobody knows anything, nobody cares. This guy did nothing wrong, far as we can tell, and someone took it into their heads to kill him. This city…the whole place is so twisted and murderous, sometimes I wonder if it’s worth saving.”

Slim shrugged. “Well, nobody can answer that for you. But you always seemed to think it was worth the effort before. And if it was worth it then, and nothing has changed, you need to look at where that doubt is coming from. You need to remind yourself what you’re fighting for.”

She nodded, half to him, half to herself. “You’re right. I’m going out. Maybe I’ll see something on patrol.”

He let her pass into the hall, and she slipped out into the street.

The first few streets were quiet and empty. She slipped down alleyways, but the places nearest the garage had become relatively clean, and so she had to wander further afield. Her head was still boiling with frustration. This murder would have seemed completely random, if not for the way it had been done. The method felt cultish, personal, or possibly both. If it was the former, perhaps Nightmist would turn something up, and if the latter, her own informants might come up with something. Either way, they weren’t done yet.

Then she heard a whimper, and Pride was in her hand before she had a conscious thought.

The noise was coming from around the next corner in the alleyway. One good thing about Rook City – if you were trying to sneak up on people without being seen, there was no place better. The alleyways twisted and wound like a labyrinth.

She crept closer, and heard: “Hand it over, bitch.”

“Please,” the other voice cried, “please, this is everything I have. Please.”

There was the click of the hammer on a nine-millimetre pistol being cocked. That threat was answered with another whimper.

“Now, just hand over everything you have, and maybe I’ll decide not to kill you.”

There wasn’t going to be a better moment. Gun raised, Expatriette rounded the corner. She took in the scene quicker than a blink, quicker than thought – the cowering woman, clothes cheap and worn, the mugger menacing and angry and waving their gun. The gun had started moving, changing target. Too slow. Fractions of a moment passed as she checked the lines of fire, worked out where everything would go, then fired a single shot into the mugger’s hand. It was a cryo-round, nothing lethal, and it locked the mugger’s hand to a gun that was suddenly embedded almost entirely in a block of ice. The second shot went into the mugger’s chest, electricity arcing as it shocked them insensible. The final touch was a hard strike of her fist, which sent the mugger tumbling to the ground.

There was a moment when everything was quiet, and all was right with the world.

“Oh my god, you’re her! You’re, you’re that vigilante!”

Expatriette turned back to the woman. She was picking herself up from the ground, and apparently hadn’t yet noticed the new tear in her dress, too busy with the realisation that she’d been saved by a local celebrity.

“Yeah, I am. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t – no, I have to thank you!”

“Sure. You’re welcome.”

“No, I mean, not for me, for – you saved my brother’s job, his – you remember a few months ago? There was that big bank robbery?”

“Uh, of course.” It was fuzzy, but she remembered. It had been lower-key than most of what they dealt with. No supervillainous dramatics, just a quick, quiet break-in that had left the police scratching their heads. She didn’t remember saving anyone’s job, though.

“He was one of the guards that night. The big bosses figured that someone had to be to blame, and he was all set to be it. They were going to throw him out, and if that happened…he wouldn’t get work anywhere else, you know?”

That was doubtful, in her opinion. Businesses in Rook City weren’t always that picky, depending on what you were willing to do for them. On the other hand, some people trying to find work still had standards, and integrity. Those could make it harder.

“Anyway, you and your friends, you found the real thief, some sort of…ghost person? You proved that there wasn’t any inside man after all, and he kept his job! It’s all thanks to you! So I mean…thank you. We owe you.”

Expatriette was stunned. She didn’t normally get thanked. The most recognition she was used to was when there would be editorials calling for her arrest, or the occasional criminal who would yell ‘You!’ and start quaking in their boots. Which was a good feeling, but in a very different way. She didn’t quite know what to say.

“Thanks. You should get out of here, try to get home safe. Call the cops if you want.”

The mugger groaned, and that jarred the potential victim into movement. She grabbed the things she’d dropped, then hurried off down the alleyway, only turning at the end of it for the briefest moment to give a shy wave. Then she was gone.

Expat turned back to the criminal. They were still groaning after she’d beaten them, barely moving, and she dragged them until they were close enough to a pipe that she could cuff them to it. No doubt the police would find them at some point, and more than likely just let them go again. Rook City police were good like that. But at the very least, the mugger would have had an unpleasant evening, handcuffed to a drainpipe in an alleyway. And there was a bonus, in that they wouldn’t have had the chance to shoot anyone.

It felt good, it felt like she’d accomplished something, and a small smile worked its way onto her face.

Then her phone buzzed – a call from Nightmist.

“Hey.”

“It’s happened.”

The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “Where?”

Faye gave her the address, and she was moving before it was done, tearing off as fast as she could. She knew they were already too late.


	3. Chapter 3

This time the place was a former factory – cluttered with much the same detritus as the warehouse had been, but even less room to move, machinery making sight lines difficult, chains overhead giving it the feel of a steel jungle. Metal trees sent roots into the concrete of the earth, and somewhere nearby wildlife fluttered and scuttled. The thought made Expatriette uncomfortable, and it took her a moment to realise why. Subconsciously, she was checking every corner for her mother and the other Citizens.

She shook it off, moving stealthily into the building. The concrete jungle was her own domain. Citizen Dawn couldn’t reach her here, and she wrenched her mind back into the here and now. She knew from the chatter on her earpiece that she was the first of Darkwatch to arrive there, but she couldn’t wait around for the others to make their appearance, not if the murderers might get away.

Metal clanked against metal, and she dropped into a crouch, guns searching for a target. Nothing but shadows. She crept towards the sound as directly as she could, sidling round an assembly with a large drill and a conveyor belt. Another flutter of wings from ahead slowed her for a moment – nothing quite like having wildlife reveal your position to the enemy – but when it stilled, she moved. Rounding a corner, she found herself in a clearing, one which seemed to have been very deliberately made, judging by the marks of metal that had been pushed aside, dust that had been temporarily swept. She scanned it carefully, but there wasn’t a trace of movement, and she stepped forward.

It wasn’t large, maybe a dozen feet across, but the murk made it hard to be sure what she was seeing. Still, she thought there was something on the other side, and moved closer…

It was an altar, a makeshift one – just a steel table pushed next to a conveyor belt. There was a cloth draped across it, and it was slowly being drenched in the blood of the woman lying on top.

Amanda did her best to stay analytical while her blood ran hot and her fingers tightened around her guns. The woman was fairly young, maybe mid to late twenties, with long dark hair and pale skin. Her hands and feet were still tied together, hands wrenched back above her head, and just like Stefan, there was a stab wound right through her heart.

Amanda looked the victim in the face. Her eyes were open, terrified, and perfectly still. The spark of life was completely gone.

It was too much. She turned away holstered her guns – it was that or start shooting something – and tapped her earpiece. “It’s Expatriette. I’ve found the victim. Get to me soon as you can.”

The team murmured their agreement in her ear. She took a couple more breaths, and turned to face the corpse. She was as still as before, hair moving only slightly in the draft of the empty factory. Then Amanda saw something she hadn’t noticed before, sitting just below the wound and soaking in the blood. It had been stained almost beyond recognition, but when she looked, it was clear what it was.

Lying on the woman’s body was a large white feather.

 

“You know what this means.”

Nightmist was performing a spell, and ignoring her almost completely. “I don’t know anything, yet.”

“Don’t give me that. Weird, ritualistic murders and a white feather? It’s obvious who did this. We just need to catch her.”

The witch sighed. “I know you don’t get along with Fanatic. I don’t do well with her either. But I have a hard time imagining her secretly murdering people with a dagger to the heart. Publicly with a sword, maybe. She’s never been subtle.”

Expat frowned, but couldn’t quite disagree, so instead she kicked one of the larger bits of debris and hissed through her teeth. Setback stood a little closer, rested a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, babe. Let’s get a little air.” She shook herself a little and went with him, out into the street.

“Where’s Fixer?”

“He said he’d, uh, keep a watch. Is that the wrong thing to say?”

“No, sweetie.” Pete never seemed totally comfortable with Slim, especially since his…return. Which was fine, Fixer wasn’t always the most amiable person in the world. Honestly though, he’d probably be doing better if he didn’t tiptoe around the man so much, but that was Pete – whenever he tried to start thinking about what he was doing, he’d overdo it and start worrying about all sorts of things. It was cute, most of the time.

Of course, Mr. Fixer could see a lot more than the average blind person. Or perhaps ‘see’ wasn’t quite the right word. Regardless, if any of them was likely to notice danger coming, it was either him or Expatriette, and most people felt that watching people through the scope of a sniper rifle was a little creepy. So her team told her.

She was tuning out, trying not to focus on the situation, and she knew it. It was just so frustrating. She’d been cold and desensitised for so long, years of her life, and it wasn’t easy to come back from that. It wasn’t made any easier when innocent people got hurt or killed because of things she should already have dealt with.

She felt so helpless.

Pete’s arms were wrapped around her, he was mumbling something reassuring and loving into her ear, and after a minute or two some of the tension had left her body and he loosened his hold.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. It was pretty bad in there, huh?” He was looking softly into her eyes, and more than anything she wanted to be distracted by him and spend some time doing things entirely unrelated to crimefighting. Instead she just nodded.

“We’ve got to stop this. Whoever’s causing it.”

He smiled at her. “Well, if anyone knows how to do that, it’s you. You’re the best detective I know!”

That brought out a half-hearted smirk. “Don’t let Maia hear you say that.”

They rested for a moment, breathing the cold night air, smelling the various scents of the city. Most of them were nasty, but at least none of them were blood.

Expat shook herself. “Okay. I’m fine. Let’s get back in there, help Faye, and clear out before the police get here.”

 

“There were five of them.” Nightmist gestured, and glowing blue marks appeared on the library wall, four roughly gathered around the fifth. “All in robes, head to toe. They had bound the woman before they took her there, then they tied her down, did their ritual, and finished it by killing her.”

Expatriette nodded curtly. “Okay, and then what?”

The witch frowned, shrugged. “That’s sort of what puzzles me. I don’t think they knew we were coming, but they left quickly after the sacrifice. When we got there, there was still a lot of the energy, just hanging in the air.”

“Do you think it wasn’t done? The ritual, I mean?” Nightmist nodded slightly at the Harpy, her new apprentice. “Something like that. It seems as though this rite, these murders…they may have been done for the benefit of someone else entirely, someone who is manipulating the killers for their own ends. The murderers may not even know that magic is involved.”

“Okay, so instead of being magically motivated murderers, they’re some other kind of murderers? How does this help us?” Harpy pouted.

“I’m not sure yet. But there are a couple of things I can tell you. Number one: these are likely ordinary people with lives, jobs, partners. They aren’t full-time cultists or anything like that. The fact that they only seem to work on Sundays supports that too. And number two: whatever they’re trying to do, it’ll take three more deaths to complete, for a total of five. They’ll want to match their own number.”

“Haven’t we already messed it up? You said the power hadn’t been gathered from this one, shouldn’t that mean they need to start over?” Expatriette shook herself. “Not that I’m arguing for them to kill more people.”

“No, you’re not entirely wrong. We certainly disrupted what they were going for, and who knows? Maybe it’ll be enough. I think we’ll assume the worst, though. Besides, remember these people don’t know they’ve failed. Unless their mysterious backer starts sharing information with them all of a sudden, they aren’t likely to change their tactics, and that means more deaths.”

“Right, their mysterious backer. Who we have no clue about and could be anyone.”

Nightmist arched an eyebrow and smiled a little. “You have a point to make?”

“Yeah, I do. Look at what we have here, look at the evidence. At the very least, we need to find Fanatic and ask her some pointed questions.”

“You know as well as I do that ‘ritual magic’ is hardly a narrow profile, in this city least of all. And as I said already, it’s not exactly her style.”

“Maybe,” Amanda conceded, “maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it’s one of her enemies, maybe it’s even someone different altogether. But it couldn’t hurt to bring her in.”

“And how do you recommend we do that?”

She thought about that for a moment, considered the tall, strong, full-time slayer-of-the-wicked. “As politely as possible.”

Fixer chuckled under his breath at that. Nightmist looked less amused.

“Sure, I’d like to ask her questions too. But the last I’ve heard, she’s off with the Wardens on some other planet. I don’t think I can scry that far, and I’m positive I can’t pluck her from there and bring her here, at least not against her will. But just to cover everything, I’ll send a message to the Adept and ask what’s going on. Would that be enough for you?”

Expatriette grunted. “I suppose it’ll have to be.”

There was a moment of tense silence. Then Setback clapped his hands together.

“Right! So, we’ve got-“

Expat’s phone rang, and everyone except Fixer flinched. She grinned at her friends like a person who hadn’t just been startled by a phone call, and answered it. “Yeah?”

“Amanda? It’s Tremata. I’ve got news on the Jones case, and it might be the reason he was killed.”


	4. Chapter 4

The morgue was always clean. White tiled floor and walls of blue and green made it look almost like a hospital, but it was one where none of the patients had the impoliteness to wander around or bother the doctors. The place was quiet, and oh so clean.

At least literally. Metaphorically, it was as dirty as anywhere else in the city. For one thing, a lot more bodies came in than were ever reported or officially examined. Murders became accidents, people with names and lives became Jane and John Does.

But that wasn’t why she was here today. Once she’d gotten inside (which was an impressive feat on its own, given her popularity with local law enforcement) she made her way to a viewing room overlooking an autopsy.

Dr. Tremata was already there, looking down at the grisly work taking place, but nodded as Amanda walked up beside her. “Glad you could make it.”

“Sure, yeah. I was glad to get away, honestly. You said something had come up?”

“I did indeed.” She turned away from the window to face her friend full-on. “I did some digging into the past of Stefan Jones. The son of Mikael and Justine Jones, who was born Justine Overbrook.”

“Overbrook?” Now that was bad news. The Overbrook family had run politics in the city for generations – running unopposed, running against opponents who suddenly vanished, running against inspiring and idealistic people who somehow just failed to get the votes needed to win. They were immensely corrupt, and if it weren’t for the Chairman and his tyrannical organisation, they would be the ones who truly owned the city. Instead they were just a particularly privileged and dangerous set of puppets. But if someone connected to them, even tangentially, had been killed…

“Indeed. It seems as though Justine may have been something of an outsider with her family, though. She stopped going by that name long before meeting Mikael, and as far as I’ve been able to determine, she had no contact with her family until the day she died, four years ago.”

Amanda could relate. “Is the father still alive?”

Juli shook her head. “Died before his wife. But here’s the thing. Stefan had recently started getting interested in local politics – not clear where he fell in the spectrum, but he’d been talking to people about unions and business, problems in society, etcetera, etcetera. He’d been getting money together, and it’s possible he was going to try to campaign for political office.”

“So, what? You think his relatives offed him?”

“Not exactly.” Juli frowned down at the autopsy below. “But it’s entirely possible someone took issue with his new hobby, perhaps they felt his family connection made him corrupt. Tainted.” She waved an arm at the window. “Now, this is Sophia Wing. Found in a factory down in Ironside. Similar wound to Jones, and hands and feet were tied like we know his were. But I think you might already know that much.” She raised an eyebrow just slightly at her vigilante friend. “She was far easier to get information on than the first victim was – she was a schoolteacher, in a public school downtown. The detectives are going to be a little while running down family and friends, as usual, so we’ll find out more over the next few days. I’ll keep you updated.”

“So we have an unattached and possibly political admin worker, and a teacher. What do these people have in common?”

Dr. Tremata smiled blandly. “I hope you like puzzles.”

 

She did not.

Two days of drawing on her resources, tracking down information and finding out what she could brought her almost exactly no results. The woman had been clean – if she hadn’t been a schoolteacher, for whom that was all but mandatory, it would have been spooky how clean she was. No drugs, no drinking, no current partner. She seemed like the most unobjectionable person imaginable. Even her apartment was immaculate.

Amanda went down to the school where Sophia had taught. It was in a part of town that was…well, not much sketchier than average, in any case. She couldn’t get herself inside – she was a bit too well known, and tall, scary women with eyepatches tended to make people nervous, so they wouldn’t want her near kids. But even just walking by, she could tell that the mood of the place was subdued. It was clear that Sophia would be missed.

Ultimately, what solved it was a dig through the police files. She’d managed to get a connection into their systems a little while back, with some help from her more technically-minded allies, and it had been a valuable resource which she was carefully not using too much. She wouldn’t want over-use to draw attention. But in this case, being stumped was enough of a problem to make it necessary, and what she found seemed like it might be the key.

Sophia Wing, born Sophia Sparrow, had been accused of murder.

The details were a little sketchy. It had been years ago, and in a city further north, where she’d been a babysitter. She’d apparently worked for a few families, then settled with one for a while, a family with two young children, making the transition from temporary babysitter to long-term nanny. All had, apparently, been well.

Then the kids had gone missing.

Naturally enough, she’d been arrested, then a little later she’d been released. It seemed as though evidence had been thin, not enough to convict her by any means, but the circumstances of the case were such that people had almost certainly shunned her afterwards. The media attention wouldn’t have helped – she found a front page that shouted ‘Killer Babysitter! Are your children safe?’ It would not have been easy to find work with children after a scandal like that. Or any kind of work at all. So clearly she’d moved to Rook City to try to distance herself from her past. And she’d succeeded, until now.

Expatriette rubbed her temples in frustration and glared at the computer screen. She reminded herself not to jump to conclusions. This had been well-hidden, after all. The case had only achieved publicity in its local area, sensationalist though it had been, and her picture wasn’t easy to come by. The name was hardly unique, either. It was entirely possible she’d been killed for some other reason, or opportunistically. Perhaps one of the cultists frequented the right nightclubs or lived in the right apartment building, had lured her out and kidnapped her.

But to her mind, it looked like the cultists were finding people’s secrets, and judging them worthy of death.


	5. Chapter 5

The team took her findings as soberly as she’d expected. Even Setback seemed subdued.

It was Lillian who finally spoke. “So you think this cult believe they’re somehow doing the world a favour?”

“A lot of them do.” That was Nightmist, their foremost resource on the weird side of town and veteran fighter of cults. “They figure that society is corrupt or weak, yada yada, remake the world in their own image, blah blah. The difference with this one, if Amanda’s right about their reasoning, is that their version of good and evil seem relatively close to that of normal people. They’ve killed what they’re thinking of as a corrupt politician and a child murderer. If – no, _when_ we see further deaths, I think it’s fair to expect they’ll have skeletons in their closet too.”

“Unfortunately, in this city that doesn’t narrow it down much. Even the heroes here aren’t all as sweet as I am.” Expatriette scowled. “So we’re expecting someone in this city to go missing within the next couple of nights, and have no idea who it might be or what will attract the killers to them. Faye, have you been able to divine any link between the victims?”

The witch shook her head. “Not a thing. They lived and worked in very different parts of the city, would never even have met as far as my magic can tell me. If it wasn’t for the ritual nature of the killings, I wouldn’t even guess that the deaths were related. Sorry.”

“No, that’s good to know. If there’s no direct link between them, I’d bet they were chosen from people the killers knew. Quite well, too, to get at their secrets like this. What we need is to find out who was close to the victims, and find connections between them. If we find the people who link them, we’ll have found the killers.”

She turned her attention the Faye. “What about our other inquiry?”

Nightmist nodded. “I tried to contact the Adept, but there was some sort of interference stopping the link from forming completely. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re just too far away for me to reach at this point. If he tries to reach out to Earth for some reason, there’s a chance he’ll get my message and respond, but so far, there’s nothing.”

“Interference?”

“Or something like that. In layman’s terms, they may as well not be in this reality any more.”

Expat frowned. “Is there any chance that they’re not?”

“With the Wardens?” Nightmist shrugged. “Perhaps. Either way, the point is that they’re not available for questioning right now. We’ll keep eyes open, but at the moment following your lead is the best idea we’ve got. So, what’s the plan?”

 

Setback squirmed in his brown suit. It didn’t fit him very well, and was several years out of style, which was probably for the best – even with it detracting from his looks, his impressive physique was drawing attention they didn’t need.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked for the tenth time.

Nightmist sighed. “Yes. Look, I needed a partner. Amanda’s too recognisable, Slim is too old, and Lillian is a little too young. If we want to go in as a couple, you’re the best candidate. Now stop squirming and try to look like a dad.”

He tried, and sort of succeeded, in the sense that a lot of dads look awkward and uncomfortable when inspecting a new school for their children. Theresa Reyes, the school administrator they’d persuaded to give a tour returned, smiling pleasantly, the mass of her curling hair floating around her head like a cloud. “If you’d like to come this way, Mr. and Mrs. Riske, we can begin.”

She led them out of the office, chattering amiably about the security systems they had on their building, ensuring that the children were safe from gang violence and so on and the training the teachers went through in the event of armed invaders. She touched lightly on their results, which were relatively good for the area, with a halfway-decent number of students making it to graduation.

She led them to a classroom where about forty children were working on paintings of fruit. The teacher, a frazzled-looking man, skinny and a little balding, hurried over to greet them.

“Mr. Golding. You must be the parents, it’s nice to meet you!” He stuck out a hand, and Pete shook it. “We’re very proud of our art program here, we think it’s really valuable and important that the kids get a well-rounded…” he rambled on for a little while about the vital importance of creativity and self-expression, and the various benefits to their students’ well-being. Pete was paying attention and looking interested, which gave Faye the chance to look around at the children. This class looked as though they were all around twelve to thirteen, and there were some talented artists in here. Most were doing the assigned work of painting the piled-up fruit in front of them, with some degree of realism, but some of the art was looking a bit more jagged and abstract, and some had departed from it entirely, aggressively slashing their paint in angry claw-marks across the canvas.

She interrupted Mr. Golding. “I’m sorry, I can’t help but notice – some of your students seem upset. Is something wrong?”

He immediately trailed off, and his eyes flicked over to Theresa, whose lips were pursed. He almost spoke, but she cut him off. “They may be. One of our teachers recently…left the school. She was well-liked, and it has left a bit of an impact on some of our students. Mr. Golding, we’ve imposed on you for too long. Let’s move on.”

Mr. Golding nodded awkwardly at them, and Faye shook his hand before he returned to the front of the class.

Theresa continued leading them around the school, but she was a little less friendly now, and a little more terse. Her descriptions of the school were purely factual and a little less glowing, and overall Faye got the distinct impression that she was irritated that she’d brought up the missing Ms. Sparrow.

“I’m sorry.”

The administrator turned. “Hmm?”

“I’m sorry for bringing up the teacher who left. I didn’t realise it was a sore point.”

The woman didn’t react at all to the euphemistic avoidance of the words ‘was murdered,’ and just sighed. “No, it’s alright. I’m sorry. Very unprofessional of me. We’re all just a little tense at the moment, and it’s…well. That’s nothing to do with you, and it’s not relevant to the tour, either. Let’s – ah, here we are.”

This time the class was mathematics, and formulae were inscribed on the chalkboard, quiet students scratching working and answers onto their papers. The teacher was watching closely, stalking back and forwards, and took a moment to notice her visitors. Then she came over, nodded stiffly. “Welcome. I’m Mrs. Bhakti.”

Theresa smiled, thought Faye felt it came off a little fake. “Mrs. Bhakti is an excellent teacher, she’s one of the reasons that our students test so well.” Oddly enough, that only made the woman frown, as though the praise were somehow unworthy. She still said “Thank you. Do you have any questions for me?”

“What sort of methods do you use in teaching?”

Mrs. Bhakti answered all of their questions the same way – briefly, and just on the edge of impoliteness. Nightmist’s quick look around the room didn’t reveal any obvious despair like it had in the previous one – just quiet children either working hard, or pretending to. None of them even looked up at the visitors, too focused on the problems in front of them.

Questions done, they thanked the teacher, and Faye shook her hand as they prepared to leave. As she did so, her hand tingled just a tiny bit, and she controlled her expression as she released her grip.

The tour moved on, and nothing remarkable happened for the little time that remained. They saw no more teachers, and at last Theresa showed them back to the entrance, where a middle-aged receptionist gave them a brittle smile. They exchanged a couple of parting pleasantries with Theresa as they left, and she made certain that they had all the forms they’d need if, as she said, they decided to ‘put young Lillian forward for our excellent institution.’ Then the woman turned away, already focusing on other things, and went to harass the secretary. “Sylvia, could you…”

They had walked about a block and a half away before Pete asked. “What’s wrong?”

Faye scoffed. “What isn’t? That woman Theresa is doing everything she can to kill the story, which is suspicious enough, but what’s worse is that woman Mrs. Bhakti. Her class are just a little more obedient than teenagers usually are, and when I shook her hand I felt her aura. She’s got the potential for magic.” Setback started, and Faye clarified, “Not the way Lillian and I do, maybe, but enough. I think there’s a chance she’s got some sort of emotion-control magic on her students, something to make them obedient.”

Setback frowned. “Hey, I was never that good in math class – or, uh, I guess a bunch of my classes? But isn’t it possible she’s just a strict teacher with, like, a rare ability?”

Faye shrugged. “Perhaps. Lots of things are possible. But a magic-user connected to someone ritually murdered bears checking out. We’ll have to watch her.”

 

Back at the garage, Lillian had returned to find Amanda sitting and drinking a beer.

“Hey, kid. How was the interview?”

Her mouth twisted with disgust. “Ugh, _boooring_. I don’t know how lawyers get through the day. Or how their interns do, I guess.” She took her suit jacket off, almost tearing it in her haste. “And I can’t believe they wear these ridiculous pantsuits every day. Why would you pick an outfit that’s ugly _and_ uncomfortable?”

Amanda refrained from making any unkind comments about Lillian’s strange attachment to goth-wear, instead keeping it to a noncommittal grunt and taking another sip of her beer.

“Anyway, I didn’t get anything much. Nobody was talking much about Stefan, and I couldn’t tell if anyone I met had magic. I don’t think so, though. Everything was way too normal. I tried to get a look at his office, but it was all closed up, like they were cleaning it out or something. Oh, but they said they’d call me about the job. So I guess if the magic slash superhero business doesn’t pan out, I can always try my hand at interning in a law firm.” Her tone made this sound like the worst punishment since Prometheus.

“Well, don’t worry too much,” Expatriette reassured her. “It’s going to be a long time before people in this city stop needing us.”

Nightmist and Setback entered quietly, Nightmist carefully holding the door open for him. “You’re right. And what they’re going to need from us is a close watch on a suspect. Lucky you, Lillian, Sunday night is stakeout practice!”

The Harpy clapped her hands. “Exciting!”

 

Stakeouts were not exciting. Stakeouts were a long, tedious time spent sitting in a car looking at a house. The house, predictably enough, did nothing interesting – it just sat there, just one more in a long line of near-identical houses, blending into each other until the street became almost hypnotically bland.

Lillian took a long slurp of her coffee, and Slim frowned at her.

“You’ll stunt your growth, drinking stuff like that.”

She grimaced back. “If I’m old enough to go to prison, I’m old enough to drink coffee.”

“If you could see what it’s doing to your insides, you’d never want it near you again.”

“Well aren’t I lucky, to not be able to see that.” She took another slurp.

He turned his head back to the window, ignored her.

“So, is anything going on in there?”

He shook his head. “Looks like she’s getting ready for sleep. She’s relaxing.” He squinted a little. “Heart rate’s slowing down. I don’t think she’s planning to go anywhere.”

Lillian nodded. “Okay, just have to say, I think I’m pretty desensitised? But when you start talking about seeing people’s heartbeats, that’s just spooky.”

He nodded, not bothered.

“So if she’s not going anywhere, doesn’t that mean she’s the wrong suspect?”

He nodded slowly. “Seems likely. But not certain.”

“But if she’s the wrong person-“

Her phone rang. It was Nightmist, and she had bad news.

 

Their car pulled up outside the address Faye had given them, and they climbed out as quietly as they could manage. Nightmist saw and motioned them over.

“Good, you made it. Amanda’s on her way with Pete, but we’ll have to go in without them. Someone’s in there, and I don’t want to lose them. You two flank. I’m going in directly.”

The old church towered over them. The rot of Rook City had affected more than its industry, and this was yet another sign of that. This place had never exactly been a city of churches, but it had seen a few of them built up in better days. Now most were like this one – crumbling, dangerous, and abandoned to rats, mold, and vines.

The big door creaked open, and Nightmist led the way, the other two coming in as quietly as they could behind her. The church was as desolate inside as it was out. It was still large, and had almost all of its roof, but a lot of the inside had been vandalised and broken pews were strewn around the room.

The altar was still present, a real one this time, and there was something lying across it, a dark shape about the size of a person.

The three made their way up towards that end of the church. There was no sign at all of their target.

“Do you think they escaped?” whispered Harpy. Nightmist shushed her.

They walked past the scattered debris, and Nightmist stepped right up to the altar. The dark shape resolved into the body of a dark young man, maybe a teenager, losing his youthful glow to death. Like the others, his hands had been tied, and a white feather sat on his chest just below the wound that had been stabbed into it. Faye sighed, and shook her head just the tiniest bit. They’d failed, again.

There was a quiet flutter of feathers, and Nightmist, on edge, whirled around to see a figure landing from where it had perched above them. The angel glared at her with golden eyes.

“You. This is all because of you. This is your fault!”

And just like that, Fanatic lunged.


	6. Chapter 6

The angel swung a fist at Faye’s chest. She deflected, a tendril of mist sending it narrowly past her. Fanatic struck another blow, so Nightmist acted as her name suggested, flashing into a diffuse cloud.

“You will not escape justice so easily! Cursed witch, this death is on your conscience. Face me, and face your own failure!”

It had only been a moment or two, but Harpy and Mr. Fixer had used it well, and were flanking Fanatic effectively, each in their own fighting stance. Fixer was the first to speak.

“Helena, what are you talking about?”

She turned her glare to him. “What is there to explain? Another person is dead because you didn’t speak to anyone about this. If you had contacted me, I could have gotten here sooner and stopped this from taking place. That means that this failure is down to you.”

Nightmist reconstituted herself, although parts still looked a little insubstantial.

“We did our best to stop this.”

“You didn’t do enough. You should have called me in.”

“I contacted the Adept, or I tried to. I couldn’t get through. I’d assumed that meant you were still off-world.”

“The rest of them are, but I had a premonition and returned. I can see that my vision was well-founded.” She gestured to the corpse of the young man on the altar, who had not even been jostled by their little skirmish. Nightmist nodded solemnly.

“Well, now that you are here, we can join forces. I’m sure you will be very helpful.”

“No.”

The little word had time to echo through the church before anyone could think to respond.

“What do you mean, no?” asked Fixer, a little coldly.

“Exactly what it sounds like. I will not _help_ you. As I see it, you have all failed utterly. I will take over this hunt from you, I will find these evildoers, and I will bring them to justice. Alone.”

“You can’t do that!” Harpy shrieked, and Fixer growled and his fists clenched, but Nightmist just said: “You’re right. We have failed. I’m sorry, we’ll leave you to it.”

The other two heroes, confused, followed her as she left, glancing over their shoulders at the angel, who was standing at the altar and staring at the young victim who lay there.

As soon as they were outside, Fixer hissed “What was that? You’re just leaving this to her?”

Nightmist nodded. “More or less. I’m sure she can handle it.”

“She can handle a fight. The investigation part is more our area than hers, and you know it.”

“Well, she can follow her leads, while we,” she produced a while feather from where she’d hidden it in her coat, “will follow our own.”

 

Expatriette was not happy that she’d missed the evening’s proceedings, and she was taking her frustration out on everyone, starting with Nightmist.

“You stole her feather? Creepiness aside, that’s more underhanded than I’d expect from you.”

Faye shrugged. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that you could have been caught, and then she might really have fought you, instead of just yelling about what failures Darkwatch are. And what was the point? Don’t we already have her feather from the last one?”

“Not like this. This feather is untouched, the other one was drenched in the victim’s blood. That one would have been useless, but this – if I use it right, I should be able to connect this feather to the others that have been taken from her and use that to find the cultists.”

“You’re assuming they already have the feathers on them, and don’t somehow get them just before the murders. And that the link will be strong enough, and that it won’t just lead you to Fanatic instead. That’s a lot to just take for granted.”

“I am, and it is. But I was willing to make a bit of a gamble to test that theory. It seemed to me like the sort of thing you’d do.”

Expat barked a laugh. “Fine. I hope it works, we’re running low on leads.”

“Can’t you meet up with Dr. Tremata again, get an inside source on the latest victim?”

“Sure, of course. I mean, I’ll try. I’ve been hanging around there a bit too much, though, and I think they might be getting suspicious of me. Nobody likes having us do their work for them.”

Faye snorted. “Even when they aren’t doing it themselves, yeah. Alright, well do what you can, I’ll get started on this.”

Everyone made their sounds of agreement and wandered out of the library, Pete and Amanda going in the same direction for what Faye assumed would be their own style of after-action debriefing. Slim stayed behind.

“There was something strange about Helena tonight. She was angrier than she has been in a while. Less reasonable.”

Faye nodded. “I noticed.”

“You didn’t say anything to Amanda.”

“I’m keeping this one close to my chest until we find out what’s going on. No sense feeding her paranoia before I’m sure.”

He nodded thoughtfully, and left her to her rituals.

 

This time, the spell was a little more involved. She’d cleared a space, removed the rug so that she was on the stone floor, and carefully made a circle in salt. Now she was sitting in the middle, cross-legged, with the feather hovering gently in front of her eyes. They were closed, so that the feather’s physical form didn’t distract from its astral one. It was an amazing thing, shimmering with magical energy. Not quite as she’d remembered it looking, but then she’d changed a lot over the past few months, and it was certainly possible that Helena had changed too. Fighting evil did wonders for one’s personal growth.

The feather was connected to others like it. There was one large bundle of connections, no doubt linking it back to Fanatic herself. Faye shut those out, ignored them. Then there were three more threads, dripping wet with murder. This would be the hard part. Although they were still bound to the other feathers like them, the violence and death that pervaded them made them difficult to handle. She focused hard, stretched out through the aether. The things tried to dance out of reach of her fingers, slipping in little red arcs. She glared, gripped them hard, and pushed them aside.

That left only two, both untouched and perfect. She picked one at random, and pulled it together with the one she held, linking them so that they were almost the same entity.

She opened her eyes, and the feather suddenly dropped into her waiting hand. It lay there still. Then she sent a tiny spark of magic into it, and it whirled and spun – and pointed.

She smiled. Now, at last, they had the advantage.


	7. Chapter 7

This time she led the stakeout herself. She took Expatriette and Fixer along, in case they needed some non-magical muscle. They followed the feather, and it led them back to the school. It looked different this late in the day – the growing shadows threw highlights on scratches and marks, little signs of age that the school couldn’t afford to deal with.

“This is where that teacher worked, isn’t it?”

Nightmist nodded. “It makes sense that one of the cultists would have worked here. Unfortunate that we followed the wrong one, but it seems as though we’ve got a second chance.”

“Unfortunate?” Expatriette’s one-eyed glare was as powerful as ever. “A boy died, Faye.”

She nodded. “I know. Look, when all this is done I’ll have time to feel bad about the people we didn’t save, and goodness knows you can join me if you want. Right now, I want to make sure nobody else follows them.”

A bell rang, and less than a minute later children started pouring out of the school – swarms of them, a flood of kaleidoscopic colour and movement, escaping as fast as they could to whatever entertainment they could find, to try and delay the next day as long as they could. The flood slowed to a trickle, and then the last few had gone and still, the feather was pointing at the school.

Finally, some of the staff left. They saw Mrs. Bhakti leave, and Ms. Reyes, but the feather stayed quite still. Mr. Golding left too, and still no movement. Then it twitched, turned ever so slightly.

“Someone’s coming out. This’ll be one of our killers.”

A figure stepped out into the street, and in the fading light it took her a moment to see who it was. Then…

“That’s…the receptionist. Sylvia. I never even spoke to her.” Faye frowned deeply. “A mistake.”

“Now’s the time to make up for it,” said Slim.

 

They followed her carefully. She led them across town, walking to a poor area, full of graffitied shopfronts and filthy, cramped apartment blocks. She got to one that looked, if anything, worse than the others around it, and climbed the stairs inside.

The heroes followed, passing through the gate more easily than they’d expected – its lock had been broken, and given the state of the building, it might have been broken for a few weeks or a few years. The three of them walked quietly up the stairs behind their target, listening for the sounds of her footsteps above them, until at last she found her level and walked to her door. They gave her a short moment to find it, then followed.

They walked up and knocked on door number five, waited, and knocked again.

The door opened a crack, and half a suspicious face peered out.

“Yes?”

“Good evening,” said Nightmist. “We’re here in connection with the recent death of one of your colleagues. May we come in?”

“I don’t have to talk to you,” said Sylvia, and started to close the door.

Mr. Fixer kicked it open, and the receptionist squealed and fell to the floor. The three entered, and quickly closed the door behind them. Expat had a pistol in her hand, and while she wasn’t pointing it at the woman, exactly, its presence clearly transfixed her. Nightmist stared down coldly.

“No more shrieking, please. Get up, have a seat.”

She found a place on the couch and huddled there.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“We have reason to believe you were involved in the death of your colleague, Sophia Wing. Do you have anything to say about that?”

The woman looked stunned, opened her mouth and closed it again. Then: “I…but she was a bad person. Why do you care about her?”

Nightmist’s eyebrows raised so high they nearly hit her hairline. “I’m sorry?”

“She…she was bad. She got those children killed.”

“Just because someone is accused by tabloids, that doesn’t make them guilty.”

“What? What tabloids?” She actually seemed confused for a moment. “No, I saw for myself. I saw her sins. She was a terrible, immoral woman, lustful and vile…she was debasing herself with her _lover_ when the poor children were taken. But what punishment did she get? All she did was move town.”

“And how do you know any of this?”

“I told you. I saw it. She…” Suddenly she shook her head. “No. If you care about that woman, you can’t be real heroes. You’re working against her. You’re evil.”

“There’s an argument I haven’t heard before.” Nightmist pursed her lips. “You saw this? Like a vision?”

“Yes. It’s a gift. We can see the sinful nature of those around us. ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’”

“So what was Mr. Jones’ sin that demanded you kill him?”

“He was plotting, scheming. Planning to take power for himself. Planning to pervert our government to his own revolting, communist ends. He wanted to give power to homosexuals, people too lazy to work, he wanted to hurt the people who are the backbone of our society-“

“Alright, I get the idea. And the boy you killed?”

She didn’t even blink. “Who, Moses? He was a little thief. Scum. He and people like him are a pestilence, and if more of them were gone, Rook City would be a greater place.”

The witch glowered. “I see. So you and your friends took it upon yourselves to purge this city of evil, and you just happened to start with the most harmless and powerless people you could find.”

Sylvia puffed herself up a little, despite her fear. “We are righteous. It’s sad that you are too misguided to see it.”

“Alright, I’m getting tired of this. I know you did this as a group. I want you to get your friends over here.”

Defiant, she just pouted. “I won’t.”

“Oh, won’t you? Well, you see, now I’m feeling very curious. You’ve told me all about this ‘see their sins’ thing, and I’d just love to see how that works. Why don’t you give it a try on my heavily-armed friend here?”

She was suspicious, but couldn’t stop herself from just a quick glance at Expatriette. Something flickered for a moment in her eye, and all of a sudden she hurled herself backwards into the seat, eyes wide and searching for a way out.

“No, please! No no no, you don’t have to, I didn’t-“

“That’s enough.” Faye was still quiet, controlled. “Message your friends. Get them over here. Nothing bad will happen to you if you do as we say.”

Sylvia had enough control to nod and pull out her phone, start texting. Nightmist watched carefully as she did so, and made sure that the content of the message was acceptable. Then she nodded, and the woman sent it.

“Thank you. That wasn’t too hard, was it?”

The woman shook her head jerkily, and pushed back into the couch. Expatriette nodded slowly, and made a little ‘join me over in this corner’ gesture at Nightmist. She stood, and went with her friend.

“That was a little cruel.”

“Sorry. Still, it worked.”

“I suppose it did. Sounds like those cultists should be over here soon enough. Does that mean the feather has served its purpose?”

“Almost. We need the others over here. I think I might be able to use this feather to lead us back to Fanatic.”

“Fanatic? Really?” Amanda looked honestly surprised to hear it, and her hand had reflexively moved back to her pistol.

“I know I didn’t suspect her at first like you did, but something is wrong. There have been too many coincidences, and she’s at the centre. We need to speak to her, at least.”

“Okay, sure. And you’ll be able to find her, if you use the feather?”

“That’s right. I’ll just need a little time to tweak the spell, and then it should be easy.”

“I see. Well, we can’t have that.”

And quick as a snake, Expatriette brought her gun up and fired straight at Nightmist’s head.


	8. Chapter 8

Faye’s body flashed into mist, and the bullet passed straight through her, penetrating the wall behind. The gunslinger brought her guns around, fingers tightening as she aimed at Sylvia. The woman hardly had time to react, and just tried to hide her face behind her knees. The guns took aim – then Fixer was there, smashing the pistols aside and aiming a heavy blow at Expatriette’s torso. He hit hard, and she rolled with it, tumbled backward through the door, slamming it open and breaking the hinges.

She was up almost as soon as she hit, guns still in hand, but Fixer was on her, and she couldn’t get a good aim either at him or past, so instead of take another blow, she jumped out over the balcony.

He rushed to the edge in time to see her catch a handhold a couple of floors down, and he was about to pursue when behind him Nightmist called “Wait!”

He turned to see her, corporeal again, shaking her head. “We can’t. We have to be here when the other killers arrive, and we have to regroup with Setback and Harpy.”

Slowly, Slim nodded. “Yes. But we also have new problems. Number one: Where’s the real Expatriette?”

 

“She’s a clone!?”

“Yes. Well, essentially. I believe she’s one of what Biomancer refers to as his fleshchildren.”

Setback looked even more confused. “Biomancer? I thought I’d heard about him. Didn’t he…die, or something?”

“Perhaps.” Nightmist smiled wryly. “I’ve heard of him dying a number of times before. He’s an immortal sorcerer with incredible powers of deception and biological creation, it’s not beyond him to come back from major wounds. Our problem is his minions, though – he creates flesh-golems, duplicates of people that help him accomplish his aims. Whatever those might be. And it seems that Expatriette has been replaced by one of these creatures.”

“Then we have to save her! Right away!”

“Our priority has to be Fanatic.” Mr. Fixer’s voice was calm and firm, but his hands were tight fists. “If the one we’ve been dealing with is another fleshchild and is leading this little cult, she needs to be stopped. Hopefully we can find Amanda in the process.”

“But what if we don’t?”

“She’s tough,” said Harpy, “she’ll be alright.” Nightmist did her best not to look doubtful.

“Okay, then the only question left is: what to do with this lot?” She gestured at the four cultists, who were side-by-side on the couch, each with their hands cuffed behind their back, and all but Sylvia glaring daggers at the heroes.

“And where is the fifth of your little crowd? Come on, it’s been long enough.”

One of them, a man in his twenties wearing a cheap suit, sneered and said “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

She gave him an unimpressed look. “Very brave. I’m sure we didn’t let any of you get a message out, so why wouldn’t they come? Surely they’d be excited to think there’s someone to murder.”

The man just glared.

“Maybe they got lost?”

“I think they know the way here, Setback.”

Lillian half-raised her hand, forgetting for a moment that she wasn’t in the classroom. “Then what if the fleshchildren got to them?”

“Possible…” She stared through the gathered cultists. “Very, very possible. If that’s it, then we’re done here. We need to chase down Fanatic and Biomancer, as fast as possible.”

She took the feather back from her coat, gripped its magical essence tightly with her power, and twisted. It snapped its focus around again to the large cluster of other bonds, and hummed with energy.

She came back, stepped forward – and stumbled, just for a moment. Fixer was the first to reach her, steadied her with a hand. His expression was guarded in front of the prisoners, but Nightmist could see the concern beneath it. She stood straighter again, and checked the feather, which hovered lightly over her palm.

“I’m fine. Let’s go.” She turned to their prisoners, who seemed baffled that the heroes weren’t interested in them any more. “And don’t any of you go anywhere. If you get bored, try taking a look at each other, and see if you can find any sins worth punishment.”

And she gave them a petty little smile before the door closed behind her.

 

This time the feather seemed almost eager, leading them urgently to their destination. It wasn’t easy to follow – it didn’t care about one-way streets full of late-night traffic, or buildings that blocked the way. Every time they came up against a problem, Setback got tenser, sweated a little more. The fourth or fifth time it happened, he very nearly jumped out of the car, but Fixer grabbed him by the arm.

“Patience. We will make it.”

He didn’t exactly calm down after that, but he kept it more low-key, clenching and unclenching his fists over his knees.

The feather led them out into another part of the city, a marginally richer part – still with Rook City’s smell of decay, but painted over and perfumed. The houses had a little more life in their little gardens, the streets had one or two fewer potholes.

“We’re getting close,” Nightmist told the others, “watch out for sentries.” Moments later, the feather swung around, and she put a hand on Harpy’s shoulder. “Stop the car, we’re here.”

They stepped out of the battered little four-door sedan into the quiet street. The feather was pointing unerringly at the building in front of them – another church. Where the last one had been decrepit, though, this was fairly well-maintained, only a few cracks and patches of climbing weeds encroaching on the rough stone walls. The other had been neglected, but this place was carefully maintained. Loved, even.

The heavy wooden doors were open just the slightest crack, and there was light and the sound of voices from inside. Nightmist turned to the others. “I’ll scout ahead. Give me a minute, but if anything starts, go right ahead and run in. Lillian, remember to keep control. You don’t belong to the magic, the magic belongs to you.” The young witch nodded, said nothing.

Nightmist changed her form, and the mist carefully wound its way through the doorway. The light inside was faint, cast by a few candles near the altar. Two figures stood near it, voices raised in argument.

“Kill her! She deserves death. By my gifts you have seen her sin!”

“I don’t know…” a male voice – and as she drifted closer, Nightmist could see that yes, it was a priest, likely the pastor of this particular church. The other figure, of course, appeared to be Fanatic, fully armoured and towering over the little man. He had a large knife in his hand, but he was uncertain, moving it back and forwards over the chest of the bound woman on the altar. If she had had eyelids, Faye would have blinked in surprise – it was Expatriette. She was glaring around through her one eye, between the two figures standing over her.

“What is holding you back? Are you too cowardly to strike a bound woman?”

“It’s not that, I…I’ve heard of her. She’s a hero, a real one. She fights evil, strikes it down. Protects the innocent. Shouldn’t we be helping her?”

“Look again. Look at her sins.”

The man stared down, gazed at Expatriette’s face, and his expression hardened. He tightened his grip on the knife, raised it high-

Faye flung out a tendril of mist that hurled the knife away, reverting to her human form as she did so. The man shrieked and staggered back. “No, please!”

The angel, on the other hand, hardly looked concerned at all. She smiled, and her eyes glowed brighter. “Ah, Nightmist. Here to save your friend? How touching.”

“Get away from her, creature!”

The other members of Darkwatch came running up the centre aisle as Nightmist raised her hands, and bright red lines sprung to life around her, marking arcane symbols into the air. The angel just smiled.

“So you’ve come to kill me? Just the four of you? Pathetic.” She reached out a hand, and an enormous blade, covered in runes, flew into her grasp. “Let’s see what you can do.”


	9. Chapter 9

The angel soared into the air. The first to meet her was Setback, who took a huge leap – and missed completely, a mere flick of a wing avoiding his wild attack.

“Setback,” yelled Nightmist, “help Expat! I’ll take this Faux-natic monster.”

“First a creature, then a monster. But how are you any better?” The fleshchild swung her blade down at Nightmist, who hurled herself out of the way. “I, at least, am content with the form I have been given. I did not work to make myself as monstrous as possible in a desperate grab for power! Face it, witch. You are nothing compared to me. You’re not even human any more.”

She attacked with her sword again, and Faye ducked under it – straight into a rising knee. The strike sent her staggering back, blood spurting from her nose. Mr. Fixer stepped in, shooting a quick blow at the monster’s face, she knocked it aside with her blade and there was a blinding flash that sent the heroes tumbling back, bright energy burning at their souls.

The shockwave knocked Setback down off the altar, his fingers still so tangled in Expatriette’s ropes that he dragged her with him, tearing the ones that held her down. That gave her leverage – she wrenched her wrists and tore herself free of the bonds, then ripped the gag out of her mouth. “Setback! Hurry, we have to go!”

“But wait, shouldn’t we…” he gestured at the battle that was still raging in front of them, with Nightmist lashing magical power at the enemy, Fixer defending her when the fleshchild got too close, and Harpy backing them up with her own blasts of energy.

Expat shook her head, ripping the last bonds off her feet. “No, we have to go. We have to get down to the catacombs. Biomancer’s here, with my double.”

The effect on Setback was electric. He hauled Expat to her feet, looking ready to punch his way through a city block if she told him to. “Well what are we waiting for?”

The two of them moved quickly to a doorway. Nightmist noticed them moving, sent a quizzical look their way. Expat just nodded, and so Nightmist gave a tiny shrug. Then the monster attacked again, and she had no more time to waste.

The doorway led them down underneath the church, into a series of stone rooms, every one of them marked with the names of people entombed there. Setback shuddered.

“Are you sure he came this way? You did see him, right?”

She nodded, glaring into the gloom. “He captured me with his homunculi, the big hulking things, before sending that bitch of a double to impersonate me. He personally brought me here tonight, to have that fake Fanatic get me killed. I’m going to take that bastard down if it’s the last thing I do. And I need to get my guns back.”

He nodded. “Okay. So where’d he go?”

“He has to be down here somewhere.” She stalked forward, hands flexing, missing the familiar weight of her weapons. The two of them rounded a corner, and saw a rusted metal doorway. She turned to Setback, and made a quick gesture – _stay there_. He stayed.

She crept forwards, took a careful grip on the door, and pulled, gently. The door didn’t move. She pulled a little harder, but still nothing. Frustrated, she yanked hard – and the door opened with a loud screech.

The homunculi waiting on the other side might have looked surprised, if their faces had been up to such an expression. Or any expression. They lumbered forwards, their enormous meaty hands outstretched. Expat ducked towards past them, trying to move past, then hurled herself back when a gunshot roared in the corridor. She stumbled and fell prone onto the floor.

“Babe? Are you okay?”

She checked. “Yeah, she missed. Fucking double doesn’t have my aim, at least.”

One of the big ones moaned and swung a fist down at them, and Setback threw Expat out of the way. He felt the breeze as it missed him by the width of a hair, and spun around to find that the first one had been joined by the other – which was practically identical, except for slight differences in the pattern of its ill-formed flesh. The next strike came too quick to dodge and too hard to block, and sent him tumbling across the room into a stone pillar, with an impact that seemed to shake the whole room. He staggered back to his feet with a half-grin.

“Come on, is that all you’ve got? It’s me! I can take a ticking and…wait, no, I can give a licking...I mean, I’m tough!”

The big fleshchildren lumbered towards Setback, and Expat took advantage of the distraction. She ran towards the doorway, and by the time the muzzle flash showed her the face of her enemy, she was already nearly there. The bullet missed her by inches, and then she was within arm’s reach. She struck at her double’s face with her left, and the fleshchild blocked. Her second blow went for the gut, and that one connected, knocking the breath out of the thing’s lungs, bending it forwards and priming it for the finishing blow – she double-kicked, right foot followed by the left, right into its face. That was enough to send it flying back into the wall, dropping her guns as it went. She snatched them up from the ground, checked the chambers, and then fired one bullet from each gun into the mimic’s head.

She smiled, and held up the guns. “Pride. Prejudice. Good to have you girls back.”

There was a loud thud from behind, and she spun, only to see Setback crouched between the two homunculi. They each had the other’s fist in their face, and as she watched, they both topped backwards – knocked out or dead, it was hard to tell with the fleshchildren. Pete grinned at her.

“All done!”

“Not quite.” She took a few steps further down the hallway before recognising a familiar nasty smell. “Crap. Looks like Biomancer got into the sewer system.” The end of the hall bent around at a weird angle, joining a large tunnel, where stinking mess flowed down the middle. Try as she might, she couldn’t spot any sign of the villain’s path, and in the branching tunnels… “We lost him! Damn, damn, damn.”

Setback put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and gave a little smile. “Come on, let’s get back to the others. They probably need us.”

 

The church wasn’t looking as good as it had when they arrived. Pews and candle-holders were broken, scattered around. Windows had been shattered, and another was blown to shards as Harpy hurled an explosion at Fauxnatic. The fleshchild dodged most of the blast, but its shockwave sent her straight into another whipping tendril of mist, and she plummeted to the stone floor, landing hard. She rose quickly, slashed her blade through the misty bonds that were forming to tie her down. Her face twisted into a sneer.

“What are you hoping to accomplish? I’ve already won!”

“You’ve won nothing. We’re here to put an end to your murderous little cult.”

She laughed harshly, and blasted energy at Fixer, who had been moving in with a tall candle-holder held like a staff. He yelled in pain as the energy splashed against his chest, shoving him back across the floor.

“You don’t understand. I was here to cause doubt. To make people question the power and the worthiness of their self-appointed _heroes_.” She made the word sound like a terrible insult. “And it was so easy. I took their belief, their self-righteousness, and turned it into a weapon. We could have done this with any one of you. Oh, and we will.”

At that moment, the door to the catacombs was flung open again, and Expat and Setback hurled themselves through. Expatriette was already firing as Setback lunged forwards. The first bullets hit home, tearing through the monster’s flesh, and she tried to take off – but this time Nightmist’s tendrils had caught a strong hold of her, and the beating of her wings did nothing to lift her. Mr. Fixer moved in, and she barely blocked the first strike of his makeshift staff. The second cracked into her legs, and something broke.

The fleshchild roared, an inhuman noise, and smashed her blade down at him – he deflected the strike, moving back out of range as Setback charged in, fists raised. The fake angel raised her own arms to block, and his first blow went straight into her armoured stomach.

“You killed people!” His fist dented her armour. “You impersonated a real hero!”  Another punch, and the armour cracked. “And you kidnapped my girlfriend!”

His last punch broke through her weakening block, cannoning straight into her face, and she was hurled backwards, out of Nightmist’s binding tendrils, landing hard against the altar.

There was a quiet moment, as Darkwatch regrouped. Then the monster’s body quivered, and her head moved. Slowly, painfully, she pulled herself up. One knee was clearly broken, the armour was cracked almost in half, and a tear in her cheek revealed strange muscle moving over something that wasn’t quite bone.

“You haven’t…beaten me…” croaked Fauxnatic. “I got…what I wanted. You…”

She choked and her arm started to shake. She took one final step, and then collapsed on the stony floor. Her body sagged, and then the meat of it started to flow away, falling off the bones underneath. In a few moments she’d lost all coherent shape, and was just a metallic skeleton, broken and lying in a puddle of goo.

Lillian broke the silence. “That was _really_ disgusting.”


	10. Chapter 10

As usual, Expatriette was the one to head the debriefing, and as usual, she looked surly while doing it.

“This one was mostly successful. We put an end to Fauxnatic’s plot, broke up her cult, and had them arrested, and my sources have told me they’ve already confessed to everything. It sounds like the police aren’t taking the ‘an angel made me do it’ angle too seriously either, which is good, even if it’s a little surprising for them to miss a chance to discredit vigilante justice.”

“So that’s good, right? We did okay?” asked Lillian, and she shrugged.

“More or less. Three people still died, and that’s at least two more than I’m happy with. If we were quicker, followed the right leads, maybe we could have stopped this before more damage was done.”

Setback quietly moved to her side, gave a soft little smile. “I think we all did our best, babe. We beat the bad guy, we’ll beat them again next time.”

She rolled her eye at him. “Sure, yeah. Maybe next time we can just do it a little quicker.”

“Speaking of bad guys,” interjected Nightmist, “given that we didn’t actually catch Biomancer, what do we think his real plan was?”

Fixer nodded. “The fleshchild said it was just to cause distrust, but…that wasn’t the whole truth. Felt like there was something more to it.”

Expatriette considered that. “Something we need to be worrying about?”

Fixer just shrugged. “Not right away, I think. But we ought to keep our eyes open. Biomancer’s making fleshchildren convincing enough that even I can’t tell them apart easily, and that means we can’t trust anyone completely.”

“Maybe that’s it, then,” suggested Nightmist. “Not mistrust of heroes by the public, but mistrust of heroes by each other. If we can’t work together, that makes us weaker, gives him a better chance against us.”

“Maybe. Whatever it is, we’ll have to be careful.”


	11. Epilogue

“It is finished, then?”

Water dripped down the stone walls, trickling in winding little paths to the floor. A rat screeched, and scuttled away from the macabre pair of figures who stood in the shadows.

Biomancer nodded. “Indeed. The heroes stopped my scheme, true, but not soon enough to matter. It seems they never understood what we were truly working towards. While the full five sacrifices would have sped up the process somewhat, three will be quite enough to give her the power you requested.”

“Perfect. It is always a pleasure working with you. As promised, your payment.” The taller figure stretched out its hand, and dropped something into Biomancer’s dextrous fingers. He held it up, and it glinted red in the faint light. Whatever he saw, it pleased him. He nodded curtly.

“In that case, our business is concluded. She is all yours. Will you be attacking them soon?”

The taller man shook his head, and his wings flicked lightly. “No, not for some time. The heroes know me too well, and they would see through my deception if I didn’t cover it in time and doubt.”

He stepped to the prone body that lay on a stone table in the centre of the room, softly stroked its dark hair. “But when the time is right, they will come to know you too, my dear, beloved Heretic.”

In her sleep, the woman smiled up at him, looking like a perfect angel.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional tags: homophobia, racism, body horror, religious bigotry.


End file.
